


The Stars In Your Eyes

by frodo (ringbearer)



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Valinor, post quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27860661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ringbearer/pseuds/frodo
Summary: "There is a ship coming from Middle Earth.""Don't be silly, Gandalf. We were on the last ship.""Are you so sure?"
Relationships: Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	The Stars In Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> this is based off of this fanart: https://notquiteaghost.tumblr.com/post/187453408926

Time did not exist in Valinor as time itself did not exist to the elves who protected and inhabited the lands.

It was a concept that had taken Frodo a period of getting used to (and much more so than Bilbo as he was older and time had ceased to truly exist once he’d long outlived the typical lifespan of a Hobbit). At first, he had tried to mark the days on a calendar he made himself (there were no calendars in Valinor), starting from the day he arrived, but that didn’t last very long when he realized it was utterly pointless.

It wasn’t only the elves that didn’t age in the Undying Lands, it was everything. The trees, the flowers, the animals and their young, and Frodo and Biblo and Gandalf as well. There were no seasons. The world was trapped a perpetual warm summer followed only by dark nights so splendidly lit with stars they were a cause for constant celebrations that never got old or boring. The elves still celebrated their holidays at what, Frodo supposed, was their normal times every year – or what he supposed _must_ have been every year – but they kept no calendars for it. It was ingrained within them now. They no longer needed devices that tracked the movements of the world beyond the sun and the moon and the stars.

Eventually, Frodo learned these methods too and how could he not? He spent years, decades, perhaps even centuries, he did not know, watching them do it, and then he no longer needed a calendar anyway. The movement of the earth was much more reliable than a series of numbers written into boxes on a piece of parchment paper.

Time wore on and he learned elvish and the languages of the trees. He learned the traditions that came with each elven holiday and how to catch fish with his bare hands. He learned how to cook (nearly as good as Sam, but never quite as). He learned how to write better than he’d ever hoped (to the point, even, he wished he’d waited to write his book until now, though he realized quite the irony of that desire), and he learned how to use elvish magic too, nearly as good as the elves themselves.

His wound, even, was, eventually, healed by the elves. He no longer even had a scar. And Weathertop and the Pass of Cirith Ungol and the Crack of Doom all became long distant memories that he could hardly recall except for when he closed his eyes tight and truly thought on it for some time.

The only thing that did not fade, he found, was Sam’s face.

He remembered his friend in as perfect, stark detail as he did the first night he woke up aboard the ship after leaving the White Harbor.

In all his endless time in Valinor, Sam’s face diminished within his mind as little as the evergreen world around him.

It was the only thing that could still cause pangs of grief in his heart that even the magic of the elves and lands in which he now lived could not mend. All that seemed to alleviate this pain was distraction, and so he played chess with Gandalf for hours on end and he sat with Bilbo on the pier, staring at the distant horizon, wondering what Middle Earth was like so far into the Fourth Age and if there was any part of it at all they would recognize now. He sat in trees and read book after book after book (for the elves had an endless supply) and he sat in the forests, talking to whatever animals wandered across his path.

When one’s life became endless and time no longer mattered, he found, one could do quite a lot more than they’d ever dreamed of before.

Every once in a while, he was able to push Sam to the back of his mind, bury the hurt for just a little while and focus on whatever was in front of him. It was rare, but Frodo cherished these moments. He imagined that this was how Gandalf and Bilbo and all the elves felt all the time and he wished desperately he could feel it as well.

But he knew that as long as he and Sam were split apart, he never really would.

And this was what ran through his mind now as he sat on a stone patio in one of the exquisitely built homes that were scattered around the island. In front of him was a chess set and across from him sat Gandalf, staring off into the distance, while Frodo contemplated the board in front of him. Or rather, pretended to. He was quite distracted from taking his turn.

“There is a ship coming from Middle Earth,” Gandalf said suddenly and Frodo jumped, startled by the sudden noise after sitting in silence for so long.

Frodo frowned, finally picking up a random piece to move it forward a few spaces. “Don’t be silly, Gandalf. We were on the last ship.”

“Are you so sure?”

Frodo’s frown deepened and he looked up.

The wizard was smiling at him, gently, fondly. Very, very knowingly.

“There was one other Ring-bearer.”

Frodo’s eyes widened and his lips parted as he sucked in a gasp.

The chess piece fell from his fingertips, back onto the chessboard before rolling off the table completely and clattering to the stone below.

 _No,_ he thought, hope rising in his chest. _No, it can’t be. It_ can’t _be._

In a flash, Frodo was up out of his chair, the game forgotten as he ran as fast as he legs would carry him out of the home and towards the harbor, bits and pieces of conversation flashing through his mind over and over and over again.

_Don’t you lose him, Samwise Gamgee. And I don’t mean to._

_Frodo wouldn’t have gotten very far without Sam._

He ran through the underbrush, twigs and branches hitting his face and arms and legs, cutting them, but he hardly noticed. That could be dealt with later. The elves had excellent healing salves.

_What are we holding onto, Sam?_

_There’s some good in this world, Mister Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for._

He stopped at the crest of the hill right before the shore and gasped.

Sure enough, in the distance, drawing ever closer, was an elven ship.

He still dared not believe it. Even now, even here, it seemed far too good to be true.

_I wonder if people will ever say, ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring...’_

_Frodo wouldn’t have gotten very far without Sam._

Down the hill he ran, watching the ship come nearer and nearer to the Valinor harbor. He reached the top of the stairs leading down to the pier just as the ship was pulling in, just as the elves aboard were stepping off, helping a very elderly Hobbit disembark with them.

Frodo walked slowly down the steps, taking them one at a time, shock overwhelming him, disabling him to do anything different.

_I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!_

He stepped off the stairs onto the wooden platform.

_Don’t leave me here alone. Don’t go where I can’t follow…_

He walked down the wharf, listening to water lap against the posts holding it into the earth beneath the gentle waves.

_Don’t go...where I can’t follow…_

The elderly hobbit was directly in front of him, staring up at him fondly. His face was lined. His hair was a pure snowy white, exactly like Bilbo’s, but his eyes…

His eyes were exactly the same.

Frodo’s eyes filled with tears and he let out a gasp and only one word escaped him.

One word that was the only prayer he’d ever known.

“Sam...”


End file.
